Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 27, 1994 TAG: 9403290147
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
ROANOKE police officer Barry Renick knew he had seen the car before.
Many times before.
As he peered into the illegally parked vehicle, 18 unpaid parking tickets were strewn along the front seat and floorboard.
Renick had the car towed, and his boss, Lt. Ramey Bower, waited for some response.
Within an hour, a man sheepishly walked into the police station and paid several hundred dollars in fines before gaining the car's release.
``He didn't have much to say,'' Bower said. ``It was just another downtown employee.''
Bower said workers from downtown businesses are key players in Roanoke's Car Wars.
``They are our biggest problem,'' he said. ``I guess they are somewhat selfish, somewhat greedy or somewhat lazy. They park on the street for convenience.''
The battle rages in the trenches of parking hot spots like Church Avenue Southwest and along the City Market, where a few cherished spaces drive renegade parkers to extreme measures.
Some wipe off chalk marks officers leave on their tires. Others move their cars every hour to keep one step ahead of the police.
Some have told Bower that they received a ticket after their office's designated cop watcher fell down on the job.
Some simply do not care. The price of a parking ticket, they've found, is cheaper than paying for a monthly parking space. The basic, run-of-the-mill parking ticket is $5 if paid on time. (It can run as much as $50 for those who violate fire lanes or parking spots for the handicapped.)
Prime downtown parking spots in a legal lot cost $45 a month.
With three officers patrolling downtown, the police are stretched thin and can't make it to every space on a hourly basis, particularly if other calls have them occupied.
That is part of the challenge for those who flout the city's parking code, Bower said.
``I think a lot of them see it as a game,'' he said.
While the rules are simple, the schemes to break them are complex.
There are those who know they have 10 days to pay a ticket and will keep an unpaid one on their windshield each day, hoping the officer will not give them another.
Violators include real estate agents, stockbrokers, lawyers and journalists. All are ticketed - even other cops.
An undercover car used by the city vice squad is among the biggest violators. It got 86 tickets last year alone, although those tickets were voided.
Honesty is not a virtue in the parking war.
One man, who worked at the Poff Building, placed a ``dead battery'' sign in his windshield for several days in order to get a free parking space. He eventually got a ticket when the police learned it was a hoax.
Another man used his child's handicapped parking permit so he could get a prime parking spot while at work.
Anonymity is the parking prima donna's closest friend.
``We get phone calls from some,'' Bower said. ``They don't want to be identified. They just want to curse and yell. Nothing stirs people's emotions like a parking ticket.''
Even if they have been misparking for months, they hold officers strictly accountable for every technicality and try to play every emotional angle.
Excuses include ``I only stopped here for a minute'' and ``I was giving blood at the Red Cross.''
Bower hears them all, but voids the ticket only if the officer makes a factual error.
``When we deal with parking, we deal with empty cars,'' he said. ``Our goal as a department is to have a fair and equitable rotation of the parking spaces.''
Some, like one woman who called Bower, do not agree.
``What do you want me to do with my car? Put it on a skyhook?'' the woman asked before giving Bower a new name: ``Blooming idiot!''
by CNB